Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't believe in hero worship.
This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths.
Mythology is a set of primitive lies that people rarely believe. This is rather different from history, which is a set of lies that people actually believe.
My temples are only in India. When I am in India, I go to the religious ceremonies.
The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper... no one cared what he believed about its origin.
Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.
Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity.
In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.
There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature.
We have a need to be religious, we need to worship, we need to build totems and shrines and icons, but nobody's sure in honor of what.